Eads Bridge
The history
James Buchanan Eads' 1874 crossing — the first bridge over the Mississippi south of the Missouri, the longest arch bridge in the world when it opened, and the first large structure anywhere built of steel. Eads had never built a bridge; he had salvaged wrecks off the river bottom, so he knew the riverbed and sank the piers to bedrock 100 feet down in pneumatic caissons that gave fifteen of his men the bends. St. Louis did not believe it would hold, so he walked an elephant across it. Still carrying road traffic and the MetroLink on the deck below.
In brief
Steel arch road and rail bridge over the Mississippi at St. Louis, completed 1874 by James B. Eads. The first bridge to use true steel in its main structure and the longest arch bridge in the world at its opening.
Read more →Then & now
My photos
